Here I was, on the radio, chatting -- at length -- with an openly gay talk-show host about Senator Larry Craig's hypocrisy, and I hadn't said a word about being gay myself. Meanwhile, Al was regaling his listeners with the story of how he came out.

The astonishing evidence that has been presented so far in the case against Dr. Conrad Murray highlights the pressing societal challenge of substance dependency that permeates our culture and extends far beyond the courtroom walls.

At The Humane Society, our mission statement is "Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty," but a corollary principle is celebrating people who do remarkable things for animals. The Genesis Awards is built around that idea.